Letter To President Barrow of Gambia – A Security Perspective

Security Expert, Nana Owusu Sekyere has in a letter to President Adama Barrow of the Islamic Republic of The Gambia to reform the Legislature and Security of The Gambia.

In a letter addressed to President Barrow, he said “These institutions must be resilient, professional and independent”.

Read a copy below;

Dear Sir,

The Aftermath of the Jammeh episode should prompt you to swiftly rethink reforms in two key institutions of the Gambia.

This is to deepen good governance /sovereignty of The Gambia and provide the much needed peace and security in the country beyond your tenure of office.

These institutions must be resilient, professional and independent.

One of such institution is the security sector. The polarization of the military by one ethnic group cannot be professional enough for the image of the army.

It is also a suspicion for ethnocentrism which isn’t good enough for nation building especially when the army is a critical institution not for one particular party or group of people but for the good people of the Gambia.

President Barrow, you may consider strengthening the legislative arm of the government if not the law/ constitution to address post-election issues. Especially where the EC has declared one victorious and there is a concession.

This could spell out the steps to redress electoral disputes.

In recommending the above measures, President Barrow, it is important to first start with uniting the people of Gambia through a the de-politicization of all institutions and reaching out to all through a well thought amnesty program.

It will also be prudent to keep the ECOWAS stand by force in Gambia for an appreciable time to help train your military and bolden their presence in the country while protecting Gambia’s territorial borders.

Nana Owusu Sekyere,

Security Expert.

In a previous statement, he descended heavily on Ex- President Yahya Jammeh for trying to breach the constitution.

“If Jammeh indeed wanted to go the legal and constitutional way, what prevented him from going that way before conceding, but rather gathered faith in the constitution after he had conceded.

By this move, he wouldn’t have conceded but rather sort to the law courts for redress or appraisal of the election before conceding

Who advised him to concede if indeed he thought there were incontrovertible irregularities?

This is a man who clearly doesn’t want to leave power. Because if indeed he wants to leave, irrespective of perceived irregularities or not he’d leave.

2000 we saw how Al Gore spoke about irregularities but left it for Bush to become president.

We’ve seen similar utterances of irregularities offered by parties here in Ghana in 2012 and 2016. But the will of the people, couple with the much desired peace and security prevailed.

What is Jammeh talking about? He can tell that to the marines. Let’s not be under any illusion that the longer we keep this stalemate in Gambia going , the more the region becomes less attractive to our international partners especially when there is an over spill of military intervention”.